Meet the Intern
During the fall of 2012 I had the pleasure and privilege of working as an archival intern at UC Irvine Libraries Special Collections and Archives (SC&A). For a graduate MLIS student interested in being exposed to archival best practices in a professionally run environment, UCI's SC&A easily fits the bill.
I am an Information Technology professional by trade and I volunteer for a California desert historical society in my free time. After thirty years of making a living in business information around Orange County, I decided to pursue a second career in history information -- an occupation otherwise known as archivist.
Archivists preserve and make accessible the documentary evidence of our American heritage. It is a somewhat obscure profession (there are only 6,000 practicing, and 1,100 certified archivists in the U.S.), yet it is the only one dedicated to maintaining the existence of our historical record. Archival practice is rooted in librarianship and students are typically educated through a master's program in library and information science (MLIS) or history.
As part of the MLIS educational experience students are encouraged to obtain practical experience by means of internship programs in working archives. I work and live in south Orange County in southern California. The UCI campus has been a recurring theme in my life although my higher education has been obtained primarily from Cal State institutions. Through my coursework I was familiar with Michelle Light’s
publications and learned she was the Head of Special Collections, Archives, and Digital Scholarship at UCI. From her presentation at the 2011 Society of American Archivists conference I learned that the department she managed was at the forefront of archival practice. I introduced myself and she encouraged me to apply for an internship at SC&A.
The learning outcomes I intended to satisfy through my internship revolved around the gaps in my practical knowledge of how to process archival collections. My MLIS coursework and supplemental reading of archival science literature have
provided me with the principles and knowledge required, but the practical
skills that come from hands on processing were missing. Life experiences have taught me that there is no substitute for understanding the particulars of a process other than to roll up one’s sleeves and personally perform the work. UCI SC&A offered me the opportunity to test theories and to practice skills by engaging in a field-based learning experience. Secondary considerations that contributed to my site choice were the desire to be guided by professional archivists, work in an environment utilizing best practices and technology-based solutions, and to process regional (Orange County) collections.
The Internship Site
The UCI Libraries, Special Collections and Archives houses the UC Irvine Libraries' collections of rare books, manuscripts, archives, photographs, and other rare and special materials. The department is home to the scholarly archives of some of the campus's most noteworthy present and former faculty members, including philosopher Jacques Derrida, Nobel Prize-winning scientists F. Sherwood Rowland and Frederick Reines, and choreographers Eugene Loring and Donald McKayle. Students, researchers, and community members are encouraged to visit and use the collections and services available within the department’s reading room.
The Special Collections and Archives department, stacks, and reading room are situated on the top floor of the main or Langson library. The reading room is a large, neat and pleasant environment of large tables with large windows overlooking the campus. The reading room also shares space with a limited number of stacks and map files.
Staff offices, cubicles, student assistant work areas, and additional stacks are located off the reading room. Additionally, there is separate secure space on the fifth floor with work and storage space and where bulk archival supplies are kept. In the basement of the Langson, SC&A has several compact stacks behind two locked cages within the academic library space. Lastly, there is a work area in the newer Ayala Science Library where a project archivist is stationed processing regional collections.
Outreach activities conducted by SC&A include both traditional exhibits and use of social media. During the fall Special Collections displayed “LGBT Communities in Orange County: Highlights from the Archival Collections” in the Special Collections and Archives lobby exhibit cases. Publicity for SC&A public programs is disseminated through its New & Noteworthy Collections blog and the UC Irvine SC&A Twitter feed. There are efforts currently underway to digitize early University materials for presentation in a web-based content management system. This is being done in anticipation of UCI's 50th anniversary in 2015.
Back in the staff area of the Langson, one of two cubicle spaces is set aside for sharing by transient resources such as interns. It’s a nice space with a networked computer, a decent amount of flat work area, and a window view of the San Gabriel Mountains. Archivists’ Toolkit is the archival data management technology used along with a home-grown Stacks Locator for logging the locations of shelved collections. Other utilities such as JEdit and NetDrive used to upload EAD to OAC are covered in my Day 8.0 blog post.
In addition to putting in a full day of interning once per week at UCI Special Collections and Archives, I maintained a weekly blog called Archivist Apprentice. To generate additional interest in the blog postings, a companion Archivist Apprentice Twitter account was used to tweet the presence of new postings to followers.
Internship Reflections
Overall, my internship at the UCI SC&A was a personal success because I was able to accomplish the goals I set out for myself. Most of my MLIS coursework has revolved around archival theory. This internship was my opportunity to apply that theory in a practical setting in highly organized archives under professional guidance. At its core, my plan was to process manuscript collections from “soup to nuts,” and the wonderful archivists at UCI helped me do just that over the course of 138 hours of hands-on work on seven collections comprising 7.6 linear feet of processed material.
To make the best use of my short time “on station” at my internship, I would spend the first half hour or so of my day determining what I needed to do to complete a module of work before I went home. I did not want to leave in the middle of any one task and lose my train of thought before I came back a week later. This required me to plan what tasks I could get done in a day, sometimes employing unfamiliar procedures. I learned to manage my time carefully which allowed me walk out the door on my last day with seven completed collections ready to be uploaded to OAC.
Sometimes, I think it was the small decisions, the ones that were neither intuitive nor spelled out in procedure manuals that were the most difficult aspects of the work experience. There are some things that are learned only by asking someone in the know and the archivists at UCI, especially my site supervisor, were generous with their time and knowledge.
From my internship I gained confidence with and practical knowledge of accessioning, rehousing, arranging, describing, preserving, shelving, creating finding aids, and generating and uploading EAD code to the Online Archive of California (OAC) for paper-based collections. In terms of more advanced archival techniques I was able to apply minimal processing concepts, DACS standards, and Library of Congress subject headings. At UCI, I had the privilege of working with archivists who are serious about adhering to professional and internal standards. As my supervisor said to me, “our finding aids and the presentation of source materials are how our patrons judge the quality of our work. Let’s be consistent, accurate, and neat!”
UC Irvine will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the campus in 2015. The Special Collections staff has been tasked with developing retrospective exhibits to honor that major milestone. One of the issues of concern to the SC&A staff is how they are going to digitize the massive amount of photographic materials from the earliest years of the school and make them available in a content management system with limited resources and no funding. I like to think that my processing of a handful of less time critical paper collections may have in a small way freed up some resources for the archivists to apply to the University’s half-centennial project.
If the success of my internship were to be quickly summed up in terms of processing output then the answer would be the finding aids of the following seven small collections posted at the Online Archive of California:
MS-R160, Committee of 4000 Records, 0.2 linear feet
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8kp82qz
MS-R161, Orange County Commission on the Status of Women Records, 0.4 linear feet
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8fx7b0n
MS-R162, Orange County Human Relations Commission Records, 1.2 linear feet
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8qz2bjr
MS-R163, Collection of Clippings on the Development of Irvine, California and Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission, 0.6 linear feet
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8m61kvs
MS-R164, Environmental Coalition of Orange County Records, 2.0 linear feet
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c82806xg
MS-R165, Fair Housing Council of Orange County Records, 1.4 linear feet
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8b56k9p
MS-F037, Jerome Tobis papers, 1.8 linear feet
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c89g5nfq
Showing posts with label procedures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label procedures. Show all posts
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Internship - Day 13.0
Quality Control
The task today was to begin executing on my quality control (QC) recommendations for unfinished collections started by student assistants. The student assistants are not expected to have a foundation of archival theory or experience. Mostly, they are instructed on how to perform repetitive tasks such as refoldering, labeling, and rehousing materials. So that's where I pick up on the first two of five such collections.
I'm pleased to find mostly tidy and neatly labeled materials, although I'm not sure if the students were instructed to maintain original order or how they made their refoldering choices. I'm guessing they maintained original order -- if only by default.
The first thing I did was compare the folders and their labels with what was input into Archivists' Toolkit (AT). Right off the bat I found the collection number was missing from all of the folder labels. Also, there was a date range mismatch between what was on the folder labels and what was input into AT. Some materials genres were misidentified, such as calling a pamphlet or report a booklet. There were no names or subjects selected for the collection nor were there any notes other than a Content and Scope note, and that probably migrated from the accession record. In one case, a too-large sized box was used for a thin stack of folders.
This all may sound a bit nit-picky, but the procedures and expectations for the quality of arrangement and description at UCI Special Collections and Archives is high. And the things I'm catching and fixing are really the realm of an archivist. It was heads down, intensive work, but this exercise was good practice and reinforcement for me.
The task today was to begin executing on my quality control (QC) recommendations for unfinished collections started by student assistants. The student assistants are not expected to have a foundation of archival theory or experience. Mostly, they are instructed on how to perform repetitive tasks such as refoldering, labeling, and rehousing materials. So that's where I pick up on the first two of five such collections.
I'm pleased to find mostly tidy and neatly labeled materials, although I'm not sure if the students were instructed to maintain original order or how they made their refoldering choices. I'm guessing they maintained original order -- if only by default.
The first thing I did was compare the folders and their labels with what was input into Archivists' Toolkit (AT). Right off the bat I found the collection number was missing from all of the folder labels. Also, there was a date range mismatch between what was on the folder labels and what was input into AT. Some materials genres were misidentified, such as calling a pamphlet or report a booklet. There were no names or subjects selected for the collection nor were there any notes other than a Content and Scope note, and that probably migrated from the accession record. In one case, a too-large sized box was used for a thin stack of folders.
This all may sound a bit nit-picky, but the procedures and expectations for the quality of arrangement and description at UCI Special Collections and Archives is high. And the things I'm catching and fixing are really the realm of an archivist. It was heads down, intensive work, but this exercise was good practice and reinforcement for me.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Internship - Day 7.0
Finishing Touches
The collection I processed at the start of the internship, Environmental Coalition of Orange County records (ECOC), came back from the student assistant. She had been assigned the task of refoldering and labeling the 85 or so folders spread across five Hollinger boxes.
As pictured above, there are three elements in labeling each of the new acid-free folders. On the left side is the collection number. For example, MS-R164 indicates this is the 164th Regional history ManuScript collection in the UCI Special Collections and Archives. The center portion of the folder tab is reserved for labeling the contents of the folder. The right side of the tab indicates this folder sequence in the box. This is folder number 4 in box number 1.
After checking the student's work, I had the pleasure of formatting, printing, and applying the box labels to the ends of the document boxes. My supervisor had mentioned that she finds this one of the most satisfying steps in collection processing. I have to say there is a certain amount of pride one takes in seeing how a rag tag archives box of loose papers can come together into an organized and cohesive arrangement.
For finishing touches, I filled out the rest of the Archivists' Toolkit (AT) resource record for the collection, added the series and subseries hierarchy, added their corresponding box and folder range instances, refined the collection level finding aid data and notes, updated the work plan, and sent it off to my supervisor for review. This is exciting because we're getting close to generating the EAD and uploading it to the Online Archive of California (OAC) where the world will be able to find it!
And now, back to our other collection already in progress...
With the ECOC packed off to the archivist for review, I re-engaged with processing the Fair Housing Council of Orange County (FHCOC) records. In some ways this collection was more challenging intellectually. There were really only three categories, or series of documents, but almost none of them came organized. I started with an archives box containing a bunch of paper heaped in different directions.
Last week, when I pulled out the papers out of the bankers box, I did my best to maintain the original order. To make the papers easier to handle I placed them in acid-free folders while transferring them into Hollinger boxes. Since each folder can only hold about an inch thick of paper, the challenge was making decisions where to divide them into natural breaking points.
Handing off the folders to a student for labeling was out of the question. The papers are in no discernible order. So I took on the labeling task. I quickly reviewed the contents of each folder and labeled each with one of the three previously identified series titles; court documents, newsletters, or planning documents. I whipped through all folders in all four document boxes before the end of the day.
Next week, my goal will be to pull together the FHCOC collection into the same state of readiness that I got the ECOC into earlier today. Whew!
The collection I processed at the start of the internship, Environmental Coalition of Orange County records (ECOC), came back from the student assistant. She had been assigned the task of refoldering and labeling the 85 or so folders spread across five Hollinger boxes.
As pictured above, there are three elements in labeling each of the new acid-free folders. On the left side is the collection number. For example, MS-R164 indicates this is the 164th Regional history ManuScript collection in the UCI Special Collections and Archives. The center portion of the folder tab is reserved for labeling the contents of the folder. The right side of the tab indicates this folder sequence in the box. This is folder number 4 in box number 1.
After checking the student's work, I had the pleasure of formatting, printing, and applying the box labels to the ends of the document boxes. My supervisor had mentioned that she finds this one of the most satisfying steps in collection processing. I have to say there is a certain amount of pride one takes in seeing how a rag tag archives box of loose papers can come together into an organized and cohesive arrangement.For finishing touches, I filled out the rest of the Archivists' Toolkit (AT) resource record for the collection, added the series and subseries hierarchy, added their corresponding box and folder range instances, refined the collection level finding aid data and notes, updated the work plan, and sent it off to my supervisor for review. This is exciting because we're getting close to generating the EAD and uploading it to the Online Archive of California (OAC) where the world will be able to find it!
And now, back to our other collection already in progress...
With the ECOC packed off to the archivist for review, I re-engaged with processing the Fair Housing Council of Orange County (FHCOC) records. In some ways this collection was more challenging intellectually. There were really only three categories, or series of documents, but almost none of them came organized. I started with an archives box containing a bunch of paper heaped in different directions.
Last week, when I pulled out the papers out of the bankers box, I did my best to maintain the original order. To make the papers easier to handle I placed them in acid-free folders while transferring them into Hollinger boxes. Since each folder can only hold about an inch thick of paper, the challenge was making decisions where to divide them into natural breaking points.
Handing off the folders to a student for labeling was out of the question. The papers are in no discernible order. So I took on the labeling task. I quickly reviewed the contents of each folder and labeled each with one of the three previously identified series titles; court documents, newsletters, or planning documents. I whipped through all folders in all four document boxes before the end of the day.
Next week, my goal will be to pull together the FHCOC collection into the same state of readiness that I got the ECOC into earlier today. Whew!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Internship - Day 6.0
A different kind of day...
Today, I was not heads-down in collection processing as I have been in previous weeks. But it was an interesting day nonetheless.
UCI has four libraries; the Medical, Science, Law, and Main (now Langson) Libraries. Special Collections and Archives (SC&A) is in the Langson, one of the oldest buildings on campus at the ripe old age of 47. Today, I had the pleasure of walking over to the Ayala Science Library and visiting with two of our catalogers. Sarah Wallbank does the cataloging of items (rare books) for Special Collections and Carole McEwan edits the EAD and MARC catalog entries for collections entered into Archivists' Toolkit. Both ladies were very welcoming and generous with their time providing me with an overview of how they support SC&A.
Back at SC&A, my supervisor and I interacted with the student assistant who has been assigned the work tickets for the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC) collection I processed. We realized that the re-foldering process was causing the collection to outgrow the four document storage boxes, so I incorporated a fifth. Unfortunately this caused a little extra work for the student as it messed up the <box : folder > numbering work she had done. I saw how my inexperience in extrapolating how re-foldering would add a bit of length to the linear footage, and therefore the number of document boxes. I immediately applied this lesson-learned to the current Fair Housing Council of Orange County (FHCOC) collection I'm currently processing.
As far as deliverables today, I handed in three to my supervisor:
Today, I was not heads-down in collection processing as I have been in previous weeks. But it was an interesting day nonetheless.
 |
| Ayala Science Library at UCI |
Back at SC&A, my supervisor and I interacted with the student assistant who has been assigned the work tickets for the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC) collection I processed. We realized that the re-foldering process was causing the collection to outgrow the four document storage boxes, so I incorporated a fifth. Unfortunately this caused a little extra work for the student as it messed up the <box : folder > numbering work she had done. I saw how my inexperience in extrapolating how re-foldering would add a bit of length to the linear footage, and therefore the number of document boxes. I immediately applied this lesson-learned to the current Fair Housing Council of Orange County (FHCOC) collection I'm currently processing.
As far as deliverables today, I handed in three to my supervisor:
- An updated Accession Checklist for the FHCOC collection which corrected the extent's linear footage.
- An updated Processing Work Plan for FHCOC to eliminate the sub-series level I had proposed for the filing unit organization.
- A revised Accessioning Manual containing several suggestions for improving this useful document for a newby like me. (My supervisor has encouraged any suggestions to improve SC&A procedural manuals.)
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Internship - Day 2.0
First Accession - ECOC
It's appropriate that my first UCI Special Collections and Archives (SC&A) accession on the records of the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC) coincides with the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a foundational document in modern environmentalism. In 1972, ten years after the publication of Silent Spring, the ECOC was formed by environmental activists to bring visibility to issues, concerns, and threats to the region's ecology. The ECOC communicated to its membership and the public by way of its newsletter, Environmental News.
A sister division within the UCI Libraries recently found a box of ECOC materials while cleaning out a long term storage area and passed it along to Special Collections. Because I expressed an interest in regional history (as opposed to University records), the collection was set aside by my supervisor as one of the collections for me to work on.
Documentation
One of the advantages of interning at UCI SC&A is the excellent documentation available on internal archival procedures. The document I'm using today is the Accessioning Manual for Archival and Manuscript Collections (AM). The Accessioning Manual is a 17-page accompaniment to the larger Archival Processing Manual (APM) and provides guidance for the initial handling of materials that come into the custody of SC&A.
Accession Checklist
My work day started with filling out an online Archival Collection Accession Checklist that captures the output of work guided by the AM. Since I'm already comfortable with Archivists's Toolkit (AT), and my supervisor granted me access, I began inputting data into a new AT accession record while using the checklist to as a road map. As I made a quick pass through the unprocessed folders in the ECOC box, I made processing notes on the following areas to help me gather my thoughts about a processing plan and to ask questions of my supervisor :
Paging from the Stacks
I knew I needed to develop a succinct description of the collection's provenance, which is why I asked my supervisor last week about paging copies of the ECOC's newsletter from a processed collection in the stacks. Even though it would have been easier to have one of the student assistants page the specific container, I asked to be shown how to do it myself. My supervisor cheerfully guided me through the steps of finding the container location in the online stacks database, and then walking me into the stacks to find the row, cabinet, shelf, and box. I filled out a paging flag to take the place of the paged box and hefted the box back to my desk. First retrieval accomplished! Later in the day when I had finished using the paged material, I returned the box to the stacks and put the paging flag in the tray to be tallied for reporting purposes.
Accession Record Review
Towards the end of the day, my supervisor and I got together to review my progress. My previously stated goal of having a processing plan ready for her review was not so much overly aggressive as it was inexperienced. I didn't have a processing plan yet, but I had accomplished inputting the accession record in AT. My supervisor made a suggestion on improving the accession description to make it conform to repository standards. She also provided guidance on filling out the access restrictions note. Other than that, I'm ready to move on to developing the processing plan next week.
It's appropriate that my first UCI Special Collections and Archives (SC&A) accession on the records of the Environmental Coalition of Orange County (ECOC) coincides with the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a foundational document in modern environmentalism. In 1972, ten years after the publication of Silent Spring, the ECOC was formed by environmental activists to bring visibility to issues, concerns, and threats to the region's ecology. The ECOC communicated to its membership and the public by way of its newsletter, Environmental News.
A sister division within the UCI Libraries recently found a box of ECOC materials while cleaning out a long term storage area and passed it along to Special Collections. Because I expressed an interest in regional history (as opposed to University records), the collection was set aside by my supervisor as one of the collections for me to work on.
Documentation
One of the advantages of interning at UCI SC&A is the excellent documentation available on internal archival procedures. The document I'm using today is the Accessioning Manual for Archival and Manuscript Collections (AM). The Accessioning Manual is a 17-page accompaniment to the larger Archival Processing Manual (APM) and provides guidance for the initial handling of materials that come into the custody of SC&A.
Accession Checklist
My work day started with filling out an online Archival Collection Accession Checklist that captures the output of work guided by the AM. Since I'm already comfortable with Archivists's Toolkit (AT), and my supervisor granted me access, I began inputting data into a new AT accession record while using the checklist to as a road map. As I made a quick pass through the unprocessed folders in the ECOC box, I made processing notes on the following areas to help me gather my thoughts about a processing plan and to ask questions of my supervisor :
- Principal names
- Separation candidates
- Restriction/destruction candidates
- Preservation/handling candidates
Paging from the Stacks
I knew I needed to develop a succinct description of the collection's provenance, which is why I asked my supervisor last week about paging copies of the ECOC's newsletter from a processed collection in the stacks. Even though it would have been easier to have one of the student assistants page the specific container, I asked to be shown how to do it myself. My supervisor cheerfully guided me through the steps of finding the container location in the online stacks database, and then walking me into the stacks to find the row, cabinet, shelf, and box. I filled out a paging flag to take the place of the paged box and hefted the box back to my desk. First retrieval accomplished! Later in the day when I had finished using the paged material, I returned the box to the stacks and put the paging flag in the tray to be tallied for reporting purposes.
Accession Record Review
Towards the end of the day, my supervisor and I got together to review my progress. My previously stated goal of having a processing plan ready for her review was not so much overly aggressive as it was inexperienced. I didn't have a processing plan yet, but I had accomplished inputting the accession record in AT. My supervisor made a suggestion on improving the accession description to make it conform to repository standards. She also provided guidance on filling out the access restrictions note. Other than that, I'm ready to move on to developing the processing plan next week.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Internship - Day 1.4
Procedural Question and Answer
I began conducting background research on my first collection processing task on the Environmental Coalition of Orange County, Inc. (ECOC). My initial searches returned a few hits in existing UCI Special Collections guides listed on OAC. Most significant to my current need are copies of the ECOC newsletter, Environmental News (1972-1977) located in the “Guide to the The Laguna Greenbelt, Inc. records.” From the newsletters, I figure I'll get a handle on who the principals were in the organization and perhaps find enough info to develop an organizational description.
My question to my internship site supervisor, is one of procedure. Do I need to formally request
access to the Laguna Greenbelt records by filling out a call ticket or am I
authorized to pull the records directly from the stacks? I can see value in the
formal approach because research in our own materials could then be tracked on usage reports.
My supervisor's answer is as follows:
There are a few options. The locations for all of our archival/manuscript collections are listed in our stacks database, at http://staffbeta.lib.uci.edu/apps/locator/index.php. You can log in with your UCInetID and there you can see the location for each box in a specific collection. You can feel free to review material at your desk, either by asking a student to page the boxes for you, or by paging the boxes yourself. We have salmon-colored staff paging flags to mark the space on the shelf when a box is taken from the shelf. I am happy to review this procedure with you in person on Wednesday.
I began conducting background research on my first collection processing task on the Environmental Coalition of Orange County, Inc. (ECOC). My initial searches returned a few hits in existing UCI Special Collections guides listed on OAC. Most significant to my current need are copies of the ECOC newsletter, Environmental News (1972-1977) located in the “Guide to the The Laguna Greenbelt, Inc. records.” From the newsletters, I figure I'll get a handle on who the principals were in the organization and perhaps find enough info to develop an organizational description.
My supervisor's answer is as follows:
There are a few options. The locations for all of our archival/manuscript collections are listed in our stacks database, at http://staffbeta.lib.uci.edu/apps/locator/index.php. You can log in with your UCInetID and there you can see the location for each box in a specific collection. You can feel free to review material at your desk, either by asking a student to page the boxes for you, or by paging the boxes yourself. We have salmon-colored staff paging flags to mark the space on the shelf when a box is taken from the shelf. I am happy to review this procedure with you in person on Wednesday.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)